


Pandora’s Box

by Notaspermanent



Category: South Park
Genre: Angst, Kenny Dies, Mild Gore, first fanfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 06:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18425001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notaspermanent/pseuds/Notaspermanent
Summary: Butters stumbles upon an old video on his phone which seems to depict Kenny dying and he isn’t sure how to confront this.





	Pandora’s Box

**Author's Note:**

> Hey thanks for clicking. I didn’t think of this when I was doing the tags, but trigger warning for suicide. There’s not like an explicit description of suicide or a focus on it. It just comes up once and I wouldn’t want that to affect anyone.

It started with a video I took on my phone. It was a video of you.

We were, in what, 10th grade? 11th?

I can't remember, could never _really_ remember.

Anyway, you fellas were filming a remake of a superhero movie, but even though I still have that video on my phone, I couldn't tell you which one. You look like you were dressed as an evil Iron Man from some sort of non-canon steampunk universe. Stan and Kyle appear to be scared civilians. And Cartman was... a fat superman? I guess? But that's not what mattered.

You were on the train tracks, staring down the camera, and in the middle of screaming a monologue about how you had a laser ready to blow up the moon, when the train came. You saw it, in fact, you had ample enough time to get out of the way, but you didn't. You looked at it for a moment. The train whistle blew, a devastating screech that had Kyle and Stan jumping off the tracks. You turned your head back towards the camera and raised up the mask of your iron man cosplay.

What happens next is what has tortured me for so many years, what I still see in my nightmares to this day. 

You smiled and every time I see it, my spine is replaced with ice. I can't make out your words over the roar of the train, but I'm pretty sure you were in the middle of saying something like 'fuck you guys' or 'screw you guys' when it slammed into you.

You didn’t crumple under the train or get smushed against the front of it. Your body exploded. If you slow the video down, you can see it bursting like you were no more than teenaged boy shaped water balloon filled to bursting.

There was blood everywhere. My phone's camera view was dyed red. If you listen intently, over the rumble of the train, you can just barely hear 'Oh my god, they killed Kenny!' And then 'You bastards!' The video doesn't last much longer and there are no more visuals.

Just red.

I know the train must have been short though, maybe only a three or four carts long, because it thunders away as quickly as it came. After the train's roar is no longer an overwhelming screech, you can clearly hear a choked out sob and somebody, it's me, I think, cries out your name before the video ends.

I don't remember this happening or what happened afterwards. In fact I only found the video around a year or two after it'd been recorded, when I was transferring my pictures and videos from one phone to another.

It was senior year when I'd discovered it. I was, as I always had been, not really a part of any group. I couldn't tell anyone about what I'd seen, but I couldn't just stay quiet.

I tried talking to my grandmother. She was a real bully to me growing up, but I'd promised that I'd be by her side when she was sick and dying, and I sort of fell into the habit of talking to her after she was hospitalized. Of course she was in coma so she couldn't talk back... but Gee, I guess I'm getting a bit off topic.

Anyway the point is I was at the hospital telling my brain dead grandma about you. I even kinda pried her eye open and showed her the video so she knew I was telling the truth.

I felt a bit better after telling somebody about this, but I still didn't know what I was supposed to about it. Then, as I was driving home from the hospital it hit me:

_This was all a prank!_

I felt a relief like one I’ve never known wash over me. I’m real gullible, you obviously already know that. I got pranked by you fellas all the time. With the things Cartman’s done, the prank excuse seemed perfectly feasible.

After the relief faded, I started to feel something else. **Anger**. I was furious that I’d been watching and rewatching a video of you dying so long, spending sleepless nights puzzling over what this could mean, being overly wary of you and your group, and of course all the worrying. 

So I decided I was gonna spoil your fun. I decided I was going to start hanging around you more and play into this little joke, then I was gonna find away to ruin it. So that's what I did.

I started hanging out with you. Except instead of finding out how to turn your prank around, I started noticing things.

I noticed how quiet you were. How little you were there. How you always left without an explanation and how, in my memory, everyone just accepted it.

Then came the problem.

I started finding notes. I tried to convince myself they were a part of the prank, but that didn't work for even a second. It was undeniably my handwriting.

The first note I noticed, I was getting out my history homework. I'd been working on it with you the previous night and it had a little stain on it. A maroon  stain. It looked like dried blood.

I flipped the paper over curiously and instead of seeing a neatly filled out worksheet I saw, in what was undoubtedly my handwriting:

K E N N Y  D I E D

scrawled messily, almost desperately along the length of it.

My heart plummeted into my guts, sitting heavily upon my organs and making me feel as if I were on the verge of vomiting. An unsettling numbness settled over me and I stared at those two words, trying to comprehend them.

Your smile was sitting behind my eyes and I could see it clearly every time I blinked. I traced my hand slowly over the letters.

Kenny died.

And then gently touched the maroon stain. I didn't turn the paper in, ended up getting grounded, but it's not like it mattered.

That night I lay awake until the morning light shone through my window, each letter flashing through my head like an individual nightmare.

_Kenny died._

Maybe if it had been that once, maybe, I could have forgotten. It wasn’t that once though. No matter how many times those words in my own rushed scrawl appeared, I never got used to them.

_Kenny Died_

I tried to ignore the notes, but they kept popping up. I was terrified and I could no longer imagine they weren't there.

I tried talking to my grandma, but being around her breathing corpse made me think of you. I could see you in my head, could replace her with you. Could see in her slow, peaceful death your death. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast.

Always, I knew, gory. It was all to easy to imagine your blood spewing, to imagine your eyes bulging, to imagine your last breath slipping away.

I was afraid of you.

Afraid of everything, really. I tried cutting it all off. I stopped hanging out with you fellas, stopped doing school work, and quit visiting my grandma. I was grounded pretty much every day, but still the notes kept on appearing.

_Kenny Died!_

It was about a month later, when I was called to the office. My dad told me over the phone that my grandmother had died, alone and by herself. I felt horrible for breaking my promise to her.

Whereas I had been trying to go to school at least three days out of the week before, I completely gave up then. I barely did anything at all. I didn't watch tv, or eat, or sleep for more than a handful of hours at a time.

I felt so alone.

But then. Then _you_ surprised me. On a Monday, probably about two weeks after grandma passed, you showed up at my house. My parents only let you in since you had my school work. We went up into my room and you told me you knew about my grandmother and were real sorry.

I didn’t say anything beyond thanking you for bringing my school work. You still stayed though. I think you spoke more that one evening than you’ve spoken in every day that followed combined with every day that came before.

I would consider that some sort of achievement if almost everything you’d said that night hadn’t been insubstantial fluff. I think you told me about every single television show you’d ever watched and every book you’ve ever read.

You talked a lot about pointless stuff. What you liked. What you disliked. I think before that day I’d just sort of lumped you in with the other fellas. Kyle, Cartman, and the rest are so loud and vocal. It was nice to hear you actually give your own opinions for once. 

Even though I was feeling bad inside and there was this part of me that wanted to be as far from you and the mystery and terror that enshrouded you, I didn’t kick you out or tell you to quiet down.

By dinner I was listening to you with actual interest. By the time the sun set I was responding. I don’t know when I finally started to smile, but I was feeling better than I had since I’d found out about my grandma.

My parents usually would have kicked you out come eight, but I think they were just pleased to see a change in my mood. It was a quarter until twelve and we’d finally realized just how late it was.

I told you that it was awfully late and you let out this big obnoxiously fake yawn and said something like ‘yeah I guess I’d better get on if I’m gonna see you at school tomorrow.’ I agreed before I thought about it, but then I realized and told you I didn’t think I was going to school.

I opened up to you. Despite all the cotton candy fluff you’d been forcing down my throat in an obvious attempt to keep away from the heavier topics, I dove right in. I wanted to tell you about the video right then and there, but I didn’t. I like to think that that was probably for the best.

Instead I told you about my grandma and that I had promised her I’d be there. I said the guilt felt like a bubbling goop of cold acid rising from my intestines. You wrapped your arms around me and held me. At first I thought I would push you away, but then I cried. I felt you and you felt warm and human. I didn't understand this.

You left a little bit after I’d stopped crying. You’d looked like you had something you wanted to say, but I was too stupid and caught up in myself to ask what.

True to my word, I didn’t go to school again the next day and you showed up like clockwork with a stack of homework for me. 

We spent that evening together again. Talking mainly, and it was good. You didn’t speak as much since you weren’t being forced to carry on a one sided conversation.

I hadn’t hadn’t found any notes since the last time I’d gone to school which was well over two weeks since that date. I felt anxious every time you came over. I kept waiting to find another note. Even though I hadn’t seen one for a bit, I was still afraid of you. In your face, your youthful blue eyes, I could always see a dead face with lifeless sockets gazing back.

You continued coming over after school the rest of that week.

That Friday, when it was dark, we were sitting on the couch together. With the noise of my mother washing dishes in the kitchen and the sound of television droning on, I glanced over at you. You were staring at me. Again, you had that look on your face. What I’d eventually call the ‘I have something to say and I’m not used to that’ look.

I asked you if you needed something. You were quiet for a bit, as if mulling over what you were going to say or if you should even say it.

Just when I was giving up hope and redirecting my attention back to the television, you asked me to come back to school. I was reluctant to agree.

You didn’t argue with me or fight or tell me that skipping school this much would surely impede my future. You quietly asked me to do it for you. You said you were my friend, then in a voice so low I strained to hear it, you admitted to missing me.

I felt a warmth inside of my gut that was unfamiliar.

I was still afraid, but it felt different. The fear was still there; it was just morphing into a new animal. Little did I know this one would be far more painful and deadly.

I gave in.

_Kenny died_

The following Friday as I handed in a test that had Kenny died sloppily written over top of my name, I looked at you. You were sitting in the back of class, your head down, and, as far as I knew, alive. You couldn’t have died during the forty-five minutes since the bell rang right? I vaguely recalled you getting up to use the bathroom and then heading back to your seat.

My head ached. My heart worse.

I decided I needed to do something about this.

That night, I stayed home. I went through my stuff, and in the margins of my notes and on loose sheets of paper. I found similar messages to the first.

_Kenny died_

_Kenny Died_

**_Kenny Died_ **

**_Kenny Died!_ **

**_Kenny Died!_ **

**_KENNY DIED!_ **

**_KENNY DIED!!_ **

**_K E N N Y  D I E D !_ **

It was everywhere. Your death was everywhere.

But I couldn't remember it.

Panicked, I called you. I didn't wait for a hello. As soon as I heard the click, I asked you if you were alive. You just laughed. I got upset. I tried to make you be serious, but something about my voice, perhaps my whole demeanor, doesn't allow people to take me seriously.

I still didn't tell you about the notes or the video. I didn't tell you how scared I was. I let you laugh and joke and hung up with a goodnight and a promise that we would hang out the next day.

We didn't, but I am pretty sure I know why.

That night, I got out a fresh notebook. Red, fittingly, and wrote on the cover of it 'Kenny' in black sharpie.

At lunch you were missing. I remembered sitting next to you on the bus, but you weren't there. Confused by your absence, I felt the urge to look into what should have been an empty notebook. Except... Except it wasn't. It had a date. A time. A recording of your death.

And tear stains.

‘Stabbed' it said in shaky letters. Stabbed by who or what I don't know. I remembered the morning as pefectly uneventful, but here was a notebook telling me that you had been stabbed and I'd somehow already forgotten.

I was talking myself into bringing this up to the fellas when you sat down next to me. I hid the book. I was a little embarrassed, but mainly scared. You asked me what I had under my arm, but thankfully you didn't push it too far.

After lunch we said our goodbyes, me asking if we were still on for tonight, you saying of course. But I didn't see you, in fact I didn't even remember that I was supposed until night time.

I was going to bed, when I suddenly realized you'd broken your promise. Upset, I called you again and accused you of blowing me off. You said sorry and sounded sad, maybe even let down.

I slowly took out my red book and there was another entry. I swallowed hard, trying not to do something weird like burst out crying while on the phone with you. You took my silence as anger and asked if I was really that upset. I told you it was fine.

It was quiet for a minute before I added that I was here for you if you ever needed anything. You sounded strained when you responded and a bit like there was something you wanted to say. I was too scared to ask what.

It was at this point I finally acknowledged what beast my fear had transformed into. No longer was I afraid of you, Kenny McCormick.

I was afraid for you.

I kept the notebook and it seemed like every time I looked at it there was a new recording. It was nearly half full by the time we graduated. You died at least 174 times our senior year.

Once you died sixteen times in the same day. A few times I'd written you died protecting me. I don't know what from, but I wish I could thank you.

A good number of the deaths were labeled rats, which was startling at first, but then I saw a rat bigger than a newborn baby outside of your house and decided it wasn't any more alarming than any of the others.

Well most of the others. What did alarm me, terrify me, make me feel like my stomach had been replaced with a bag of ice, was that the vast majority of your deaths, were suicide. I stayed closer to you than ever. We hung out a lot over that summer and when college rolled around, we ended up moving in together.

You dropped your classes before you even started them. I asked you why but I didn't get an answer. In fact in my head after I asked, you walked away. My book tells a different story though.

I didn't ask again.

You were moody around me often, but I don't blame you. I didn't realize how watchful and smothering I was towards you. Any time I saw you doing something even remotely life-threatening, I stopped you. I even made you hold my hand when crossing the street.

I wanted to save you.

I didn't know what the danger was or why you needed saving, but I knew that I wanted to. That I needed to. I have some scars on my body that I don't recollect having. I wonder if I have them from you. From fighting for you. So many times the book says words like shot or stabbed or even chainsaw.

Who was after you Kenny?

I remember the way you always eyed the scar on my shoulder. With guilt, I think, but sometimes, you seemed almost angry. That scared me. Still scares me. In the book, I have a few (6) entries that say 'me'. I can't wrap my head around those. Did I kill you? I know I get upset with you, but I could never do _that._ What other explanation is there though? Sheer clumsiness?

They make me feel crazy.

This whole thing makes me feel crazy.

There are blood stains in our apartment; they are everywhere. There is proof everywhere. I wanted to talk to you about it so bad, but I just didn't know how. Deeper than that, I felt like if I ever put this knowledge into words, the outcome would be worse than opening Pandora's box.

I kept silent for years. I got through college. We went through so much together and told each other almost everything, but I never spoke about this no matter how drunk or scared I was, until... Well until that night.

You were opening a can of soup. This was something that made me sit on the edge of my seat, because there are over sixty entries labeled can opener. I don't know how you can die once to a can opener, let alone sixty times, but my notebook, at this point black (the red one having been filled long ago, along with a blue and purple one) says you have.

So you got the top cut all the way around and I was watching you like a hawk out of the corner of my eye. With your bare hand, you idiotically tried to pry the sharp lip out of the can, even though the can opener had a special little corner for that. It finally came out and I was able to let out my breath. I watched with curiousity as you stuck out your small pink tongue, then I jumped up as I realized what you're doing.

You were about to lick some of the cold soup off of the edge of the incredibly sharp lid.

In my head, I saw you clumsily missing your mouth and imbedding it into your neck. I saw me sobbing and writing another entry. I saw your dead face and decided to stop you.

I didn’t think, I just acted. I got in your face and screamed at you. I screamed until I was crying.

You looked... perplexed.

You stayed silent the whole time and then when I was done, a sniffling mess, you ruffled my hair and asked me if I wanted soup.

I just sank to the ground.

I felt empty.

I felt useless.

There you were. My best friend, but not only that. You were the person who I spent more time with and cared about more than anyone else, yet still I couldn't protect you from anything.

Not even a can opener.

You set a bowl of soup in front of me, told me to get up and come eat with you. When I didn't, you looked concerned, sank to my level. I must have looked pitiful to you, because you scooted the soup away, and pulled me into your arms.

It reminded me of the time you’d hugged me after I’d told you about my grandma. Any other day, I probably would have cried some more, but I was emotionally exhausted. I just wanted to sit in the couch with my best friend, eat soup, and watch something with gratuitous fart jokes.

You massaged my scalp in slow circles as I leaned my head against your chest. It felt nice. Your hands radiated a soothing warmth that I had become dependent on withou even realizing. It was times like these that made me doubt my notebooks, that made me think you could be nothing but alive.

We sat together on the tile floor of the kitchen. Two grown men in their mid twenties, clinging to each other beside plastic bowls of 99 cent soup.

You felt good and warm and human and alive and so many other wonderful things at once, but I had this sense that beneath that hot, comforting skin was a coldness that would freeze me solid if I ever breached it, so I tried never press too far.

I got up. With a bowl of soup in one hand and your wrist gently clasped in the other, we went to the living room. We usually eat at the dining table, you don’t need me to remind you how angry I can get about stains, but today had been draining so television and soup it was.

You set our soup on the coffee table, before realizing you forgot the spoons. You smiled, telling me you'd be right back. When you returned, you had two spoons, but also the whiskey and a big grin. ‘Let's get wasted and watch American Idol reruns,’ you said. And I agreed even though I had work in the morning and a million other reasons why I shouldn't.

Anyway we were both pretty drunk, leaning on each other, and I'd found my smile again. Heck, I was laughing. It was good. It was great. You were falling asleep curled up with your head in my lap, when you suddenly shot up.

You just screamed the word ‘soup’ and it alarmed me so badly that I almost peed myself. It probably would have been better if I would have.

You apologized for scaring me and then drunkly explained we'd forgotten about our soup. Two cold bowls sat on the table. I sighed, telling you to eat it, while I went to the bathroom. I stumbled to the toliet, did my business, and then washed my hands.

I looked in the mirror and realized how much you'd changed me, shaped me. I saw a confidence in my eyes that could have never existed without you. You helped me so much and I never even thanked you.

I wasn't even sure if you knew how much I appreciated you.

With this in mind, I left the bathroom, to find you face down in a bowl of soup. I screamed, you didn't move.

_‘Oh god,’_ I screeched ‘ _Oh god Kenny not again!’_

Even though it was years later and I had my notebook and must have seen you die thousands upon thousands of times by this point, most of which far more violent and traumatic than drowning in a bowl of soup, I broke. 

I was worried for a moment I’d pass out. I tried to take a step towards you, but from the booze or the panic my body wasn’t responding right. I was dizzy and the corners of my vision were goin black and all I could do was brace myself against the wall. 

I could see the letters. And beyond those, lifeless blue eyes. Cold. Darkness.

I held my hand over my chest, my heart pounding out of it's cage. I moved as quickly as I could to your bod, using the wall as support. My eyes widened when I saw bubbles appearing in the soup.

You weren't dead.

I grabbed your hair and jerked your head up. Your eyes wet glazed over, half open and your breathing sounded ragged.

Instead of doing anything that a first aid administer would recommend, I slapped you hard with my open palm, screaming ‘Kenny please don't die again!’

You were drunk off your ass, but that sobered you up. ‘Again?’ you had asked with a splash of clarity and hope in your eyes.

At seeing you alert enough to respond, I crumpled into your chest. I was both too relieved and too emotionally exhausted to cry again or really even react at all. Still I stiffened a bit when I buried my face in your chest and instead of warmth and consistency, there was a cold panic. I finally felt a bit of that coldness I had always known was there, but I couldn't let go.

I couldn't let go of you.

That’s when you started rambling.

You told me you weren't dying. You asked me why I thought you were. You said you had just dropped the spoon and, not wanting to get a new one, decided to drink it like a dog, but really, what did I mean by again? You kept asking questions. The desperation seasoned your voice, but I still didn’t answer.

When it was clear I wasn't responding, you started yelling. You seemed scared. You tried to push me off of you. I wouldn't budge. I couldn't lose you. Even if I couldn't remember your deaths, even if you kept coming back, I knew I couldn't bare another one.

You cried. It was an angry cry peppered with curses and drunk thrashing and nonsensical noises, but eventually you wrapped your arms around my back so tight I thought you would snap my spine and just screamed into my neck.

I held you back just as tight.

I didn't say any anything, afraid of what I might say, afraid of opening that box, but I was there and I had you. I wasn't going to let you go.

Your whole body felt cold. And shaky. And your crying wasn't slowing down at all. Your grip hadn't relaxed in the slightest. You were saying words from time to time but they sounded foreign and pained.

I still wanted to save you.

But I didn't know how.

Suddenly your cries stopped, just choked out on the middle of a scream and you threw me off you. I saw fear in your eyes. Your hands flew to your neck and I thought you were choking. I tried to get behind you and perform the Heimlich maneuver, but you were thrashing too violently.

Deciding that I was going to save you no matter what, I tackled you and did probably one of the dumbest things I could have done. I sat on top of your chest, pinning your arms to the ground with my legs and forced your mouth open.

I shoved part of my fist into the side of your mouth, letting your teeth mash into my knuckles as I forced your mouth open wide enough to break your jaw. I used my free hand to jam my fingers down your throat. I probably would have stuck my whole arm into you to pull out whatever was obstructing your air way, but when my fingers hit the back of your mouth, they felt something furry.

I almost recoiled, but I pressed further, trying to grab at what I had felt. Then something sharper and smaller than your teeth chomped into my finger.

Instinctively, I withdrew my hand. I screamed and flung my arm about wildly when I saw a small mouse, no bigger than a toe, attached to my finger. I fell off of you in my panic and bashed the mouse against the floor. It's little body lay broken and flat.

When I looked back at you, your eyes were closed, but streams of blood flowed from them as well as your mouth and nose. You weren't thrashing anymore, but you weren't still either. You just twitched and gripped your throat as your mouth opened and closed.

Another mouse, this one larger, the size of my pinky scampered out of your mouth and across your nose. I was frozen in shock until I saw it gnaw into your eyelid. I batted it away and it went flying, hitting the wall with a sickening crack.

Your face was covered in blood now, but it looked familiar. This was the face I saw every night in my nightmares.

This was the face of the man I needed to save.

I was staring in horror at your dying body, when you choked out my name. I scrambled closer, grabbing your hand as tightly as I could and then tangling the other into your hair. You said my name again, your voice raspy and sounding very much like a rat had just clawed its way up your throat. "Thanks." I held you tighter, staining your blonde hair red as the blood continued to flow from my finger.

"I-" you started shakily, but you didn't get to finish, because they broke through your flesh. Two mice gnawed through your throat, causing whatever you were going to say to come out as an unintelligible gurgle. I tried knocking them away, but they just kept coming.

They chewed their way out of your cheeks, neck, and head. Your shirt was wriggling with movemement underneath. I hit and punched wildly at them as your shirt transformed from a pale orange to burgundy. I could see nearly fifty rats now, the largest almost the length of your head and my hands were covered in bites from trying to get them away.

I panted, but kept going, praying that the adrenaline would do its thing and I would be able to save you. My arms were covered in blood. You were no longer thrashing, but I thought that if I just kept trying, just kept going, I would finally save you. 

I couldn't.

I didn't.

They left you a skeleton. I fought them every second of the way and I have scars all over my arms to prove it. After the rats were done they scampered off in all directions, not even bothering with me.

The numbness I felt, staring at your bones in tattered clothing, was so overwhelming that I didn't think I'd ever be able to feel anything again. In someways I still feel this is true.

I'm not sure how long I sat there clutching your skeleton. I wiped a bit of blood off of your cheek bone and stared into hollow sockets. I could imagine blue eyes smiling back at me. I whispered your name and then I apologized. I hugged you. I felt something touch my shoulder and I jumped, hope flooding into me.

I imagined that your body was already back and that you were hugging me back, but it ended up just being another rat. I screamed and flung it off of me. It was probably dead when it hit the ground, but I started kicking it anyway. I finally started to cry as I turned that rat into a red stain on our carpet.

When the bones became a broken mush in a mess of pink and gray, I stopped. I didn't know what I was supposed to do.

My best friend was dead.

I crumpled back down, looking at what was left of you for answers. For some reason, I heard, Mr. Mackey's (our grade school guidance counselor, if you can remember that far back) voice in my head. _If you're ever in trouble, mkay, call 9-1-1. That's 9-1-1, mkay?_

I called the police and they were surprisingly nonchalant about a grown man being torn to bits by rats. ‘Happens all the time’ they said after consulting that little phone-like device that stores records.

‘Always happens to people named Kenny.’

They figured that people with that name must just attract them. I thought back to my book. To all the times that it said rats. I wrote this down simply as rats too.

An exterminator came and took the carcasses of the animals away. He also did a free check to see if he could see where the infestation was coming from. He was puzzled. He couldn't even find droppings.

Your funeral was yesterday. Your sister and I split the cost of a headstone and a cheap service (I couldn’t bear cremation since I have no clue how you come back). The whole time I kept imagining you bursting out of the casket.

I kept seeing your lively blue eyes. I kept hearing your laugh.

But you weren't there.

You've been dead for a week now.

I feel something sitting in the pit of my stomach, growing heavier with each passing day. I don't know if it's fear or loss or mourning or whatever. But I feel something terrible inside of me.

I haven't been to work since you died. I haven't even left the apartment for anything other than your funeral. I did the arrangements all by phone.

Why aren't you back yet? The book says you can die and come back and die again at least a few times a day. You have been gone a whole week. I've looked through the book and there are times when you go long periods without dying.

Before, I considered these to be good, but now, I wonder if they exist only because you were stuck dead.

So without anything else to do, I write this in my black notebook. A complete recount of your death. Of the way it has made me feel.

I want you back Kenny. I want to hear your stupid jokes and listen to your lame excuses about why your late for rent this month. I want to see you drunk and making waffles at three am in the morning just because you feel like it. I want to go to the shelter and buy the dog we kept putting off. I want to feel your comforting touch as you gently rub my back when a movie scene is too scary.

I need you here.

The silence of this apartment is suffocating. Silence when there should be noise. Silence when there should be laughter.

So please Kenny, come back to me. I promise as soon as you come back, well scratch that, as soon as your back, and I happen to check my book, we are going to sit down and talk.

I'm going to tell you everything I know about you. I'm going to show you all four of my books. And even though I won't remember, I want you to know about this pain and hurt that your death caused me.

I don't expect you to tell me why you die or why you come back. I don't expect you to tell me anything at all. I just want to tell you that I'm here for you.

Before, I didn't want to broach the subject, too afraid of its implications. Too afraid of that cold. But now, I need you to know that I am here for you.

I care about you Kenny and I'm sorry for not asking before, but how can I protect you?

I'll wait for you for as long as it takes.

 

Sincerely yours,

Butters.

 

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading to the end. I hope you enjoyed it. Have a nice day. <3


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